Name: Jasmin Glaesser
Born: July 8, 1992 in Paderborn, Germany
Sport: Track cycling
What’s her story?
Glaesser left Germany when she was eight years old, living in Seattle for a year before moving to Vancouver. She started cycling when she was 17, and first competed for Canada at the 2011 Pan Am Games after receiving her Canadian citizenship in September of that year. The timing was terrific—Glaesser was part of the group that won gold in the team pursuit at Guadalajara, which was the event’s introduction into Pan Am competition.
Since then, Glaesser has medalled at four consecutive UCI World Championships in the team pursuit event (silver in 2012 and 2014; bronze in 2013 and 2015), each time with a different group of cyclists.
Best result
Olympic bronze at the 2012 Games in London (with Tara Whitten and Gillian Carleton)
Biggest rival
England, Australia and Canada have dominated the podium in team pursuit at world championships over the past several years, while the Americans have not medalled since 2011. Still, the U.S. managed to nab silver at the 2012 Olympics, and two of the cyclists from that squad will be competing in Toronto.
Here’s an interesting fact
Glaesser also competes in road racing. She participated in the 2013 Giro D’Italia and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. In May 2015, she finished ninth in the time trial of the Tour of California, just behind fellow team pursuit racers Whitten and Laura Brown (Brown will race with Glaesser in team pursuit at the Pan Am Games).
Prediction
An encore of Glaesser’s first Pan Am performance and first medal for Canada: gold.